


Badges and Batter

by bandaran



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Flash Fic, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, M/M, Mutual Pining, Recreational Drug Use, Sick Stiles Stilinski, St. Patrick's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 22:05:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14680419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bandaran/pseuds/bandaran
Summary: Stiles coordinates a breakfast luncheon for the BHPD from his sick bed and then insists on attending despite how grotesquely ill he is. The cold medicine might kinda, sorta make him say some things to a certain dumbly attractive wolfman that he really shouldn't have.Or. Why Stiles Stilinski hates St. Patrick's Day.





	Badges and Batter

Stiles has been sick for what is likely ten thousand years condensed down to two weeks due to some oversight of the space-time continuum. And his dad won’t let him do anything while he was infected with this new form of bubonic pestilence his doctor insists is the common cold. At first, he’d had been about it. No laundry to do? No meals to cook? No garbage to drag down the drive? Fuck yeah. Sign him up. But this also meant no leaving the house, no friends, no driving, no splitting a joint with Scott as they cruise down the freeway at dusk. Despite the impregnable nature of his friends’ supernatural immune systems, John refuses to let him out of the house or anybody else in. Not even Scott. Not that Scott noticed.

Scott has all manner of casual hookups to attend to and that, apparently, left no time for deathly ill, snot leaking best friends. And Stiles spent a bit of his quarantine sulking over being abandoned. But that was just Scott. He was ride or die in a bad situation, but easily distracted if a situation wasn’t life threatening so… whatever. Stiles has video games, soup and a lot of pharmaceuticals to cope.

To keep him occupied, the Sheriff gave him the busy-work task of orchestrating a new initiative thrust on his shoulders by the city manager’s office. Someone at town hall thought it would be a swell idea for the BHPD to open up the doors of the local Elk Lodge to the community for an officer meet and greet St. Patrick’s Day pancake brunch. The officers would cook and serve green pancakes (and Lucky Charms for the youngsters) for free to anyone in town who wanted to drop in. (Cutesy small-town shit). And Stiles manhandled the fuck out of this thing. Like, you want green flapjacks, Sharon? How about green flappies and green eggs and ham? For a dollar more, citizens could get a Dr. Seuss themed breakfast, donated by Voula’s Diner, and all proceeds go to the Red Cross.

The vendors and multiple local government employees now knew Stiles by name, or, as that one annoying kid trying to Leslie Knope his way through townhall and make everybody look bad with his unrelenting energy and willpower. This small event was now a huge undertaking totally organized and arranged from Stiles’s disease laden death-bed.

And he was, well not happy to do it, but content with the job he had done; convincing a certain big-box store to donate several balloon wreaths for the occasion had been its own special, circle of hell. But it was done.

And Stiles is still fucking sick.

The day of Badges and Batter comes around and John is proudly putting on his enamel Red Cross pin and a tall, clover embellished pilgrim’s hat for the kids and Stiles is leaning in the doorway to his room, congested, his skin tinted to a rather festive green pallor. 

“Staring a hole into my head isn’t gonna change anything, kiddo,” John says, adjusting his belt before a wooden standing mirror.

“This is my thing,” Stiles grouses. He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror glass and he looks like crap. Maybe worse than he actually feels, which is to say he doesn’t have a fever at present and could totally just sit in a chair in a corner somewhere to observe his efforts coming to fruition.

“I’ll take pictures.”

“You understand why that’s not the same, right? That trapping me here is cruel and unusual punishment.”

“Honestly, Stiles, I didn’t think you’d get this – invested. When you were in high school you never gave a second thought to this stuff.”

“When I was in high school there was some new and terrifying monster crawling out of the nether every other week. The summer before junior year I broke my leg being barrel-rolled by a kelpie. A kelpie, Dad. And that was just, like, a Tuesday.”

“You told me you slipped and fell into an empty pool,” his father says, his reflection eyeing him, “And besides, you know what I mean. You’ll live. You can go next year.”

Stiles sucked back a wad of mucus, his pout deepening, “And if I’m horribly murdered by a flock of demon geese before then? Should I just watch from the volcanic outcroppings in hell?”

“You never used to be so dramatic,” sighs the Sheriff.

“I’ve never been sequestered to two thousand square feet for a hundred years before.”

“Good-bye Stiles,” John says, pushing past him, “I’ll bring you home a plate.”

“Wait!” Stiles blurts, scrabbling after him and John pauses at the back door, “Who’s taking pictures? Did the Beacon Mirror agree to send a camera? They’ve been wishy-washy for a week.”

“Actually, Derek Hale volunteered.”

That puts a painful knot, that Stiles skillfully fucking ignores, in his stomach, “Why do you say his name like that, like neither of us are on a first-name basis? Is it the reformed-greaser thing or because of his very short lived and undeserved stints in lock up?”

“It’s because I like to remind myself and you who he is.”

“He’s been exonerated! By you!”

John’s mouth quirks amusedly, “I didn’t say that was the reason.” And before Stiles can pepper him with more questions and stall him any further, the Sherriff ducks out of the house with a sly grin that Stiles does not appreciate.

***

Stiles waits about an hour after his dad’s departure before Ubering to the Elk Lodge. His Jeep is too conspicuous and easily recognizable and there isn’t a chance in hell he’s not going to this stupid thing. Not after so long cooped up. His thoughts are starting to get a little spidery. So, he throws on a gray hoody and some torn up old jeans and is out the door by the time set-up should be wrapping up. Crisp, moist spring air is starting to heat up by the time he gets there and the music’s already started down the block. The newsletters he had sent out have drawn in a decent crowd, one that he, despite the wads of tissues sticking out of his pockets, can easily conceal himself in.

He can’t lie though, he’s achy all fucking over and his eyes are itching and he has to take a breather and swig of cough syrup before he even gets to the Lodge, leaning heavily against a brick wall, to recompose himself. He hasn’t needed to use his legs in two weeks and they’re flimsy now thanks to his cold-induced sedimentary lifestyle. By the time he gets there, Deputy Wu is out front dressed in a leprechaun outfit (she’s the smallest person in the department and the only one able to shimmy into the costume) dancing and handing out green lollipops to the kids and posing for pictures. Stiles slips by her while she’s preoccupied with shriek-giggling toddlers. The Lodge looks so much better than he could have hoped for and the payoff washes over his soul. It sounds stupid, even to him as he wades through tides of families, but there’s something really fucking cool about knowing he is the driving force behind all these thoroughly psyched, grinning kids.

He doesn’t take the chance of going through the food line; the department knows him too well, they’ve been his adoptive family basically since he was born. The fact that he hasn’t been spotted yet is a small miracle. But that probably has something to do with half the town having turned out to meet the police officers of Beacon Hills and throw in some cash for charity. So, he snags a handful of pretzels and solo cup of ginger ale from an unattended snack table near the door and finds a discrete place out on the back lawn to sit and watch the band.

He plops down under a tree and rests his hooded head back against the bark. He’s probably dying, but this was totally worth it. (He’s not dying). The doctor had been just as unhelpful as Stiles knew she would be. Nothing to do with a cold but take it easy and mainline fluids like an addict.

He might nod off, pretzels piled in his lap, just for a few minutes while his body reenergizes. Not a big deal.

Except for the part where he’s being startled awake, like full-body flailing and the pretzels go flying and the soda gets slapped over and is that you God? Broad hands steady his shoulders and his vision clears and Derek’s knelt before him, camera strap slung across his chest.

“What are you doing here.”

“What, I’m not, you’re – you’re in a dream.”

“You were the one sleeping.”

“Neither of us can prove that.”

“Go home before your dad sees you,” Derek tells him, unhelpfully.

“I just wanted to see it,” Stiles whines, “Wait, is that… are you wearing plaid? Are you, Derek Hale, wearing something other than a dirty Henley?”

“My shirts aren’t dirty.”

“Yeah, when they’re not on you they’re not.”

Derek goes a shade of red previously unknown to his painfully hot species and his eyes dart to a couple of vague middle points. “Flirting just to get out of this is not ok, Stiles.”

“Derek, I most assuredly am flirting with you because I’m starved for attention, delirious with illness and am so into you that not flirting would be a cosmic injustice on the scale of interplanetary genocide. It has nothing to do with me wanting to hang out for like,” he checks his phone but the numbers are all wobbly, “fifteen more glurbs.” Maybe pumping himself full of over the counter cold meds before he left the house was like… a bad idea? His tongue’s a little tangy, still bitter-sweet from the cough syrup.

Derek presses his wrist to Stiles’s forehead and Stiles is so good with this, he wishes he could be sick forever if it means Derek will take care of him. Maybe that’s kind of fucked up of him to wish for. Is this weird? Why does this feel so weird? Meh, whatever. They probably don’t even make sexy nurse outfits that would fit Derek, and if not, what would even be the point? There’s people starving in Hades that would put his wish to better use. Derek grunts, dissatisfied with his findings.

“I’m going to pick you up,” he says and Stiles gasps out something along the lines of ‘don’t tell my dad! He’ll lock me up in the chokey forever!’ which, like a sensible adult, Derek ignores.

So, Stiles has never been lifted by a werewolf before. Scott’s definitely gotten in a few bone-crushing hugs, too-hard high fives and knocked him down on accident plenty of times, but he’s never been lifted. Not much pride in being lifted. At least, not in being lifted because one physically cannot stand up. Not a proud moment, but fuck if it’s not, you know, mildly arousing. Obviously, wolfiness aside, Derek’s strong; his shoulders are unforgiving on any shirt he tries to cover them with but seeing it and feeling two hundred pounds of lean muscle effortlessly whisking Stiles off the ground are two very different sensations.

If he weren’t so woozy he may very well have been trying to hide a friendship-ending boner because Derek smells like… like musk and peppermint and it’s a little much for Stiles’s already short-circuiting brain.

“This is fulfilling some stuff for me, Der; stuff I did not know needed to be fulfilled,” Stiles chuckles. He might be getting a little cuddly. Whatever. He’s an incubus of viral plague; no point in being bashful. Derek is doing a bang-up job going unnoticed, which, how is he so good at that exactly? Like, he’s a scorching hot, six-foot-tall demigod with perfect skin and pretty smelling hair. How is he not the center of attention at every place he’s ever in?

“Stop narrating what I’m doing,” Derek says tightly, hugging closely to the side of the building while a group of people meanders passed on the sidewalk ahead.

“I’m talking?” Stiles laughs, “Ohmygod, Der, what kind of fabric softener do you use, this shirt is luxurious. You probably make it yourself, like, out of your own sweat. Because even that smells amazing. I think we need to be married, dude. I’ll take such good care of you –,”

“If you don’t shut up I’m going to bring you to the Sherriff,” Derek snaps.

“Damn dude,” Stiles sulks and then instantly forgets what either of them just said and launches into a new tirade, “Hey Der, why did you turn me down that time I asked you out? Is it because I’m, like, I dunno, me?”

“Not now,” Derek growls. The way must clear up because suddenly they're moving again. Derek gets them briskly down the street and into a public parking garage.

“Not now? Is it because I’m bi? Ohmygod you’re one of those people-,”

Derek shoves him into the passenger seat of his Camaro, buckles him and then climbs in behind the wheel. “I’m not one of those anything,” he says, revving the engine, “You’re stoned. And you didn’t ask me out, Stiles, you asked me to go to Taco Bell with you.”

“So, you do remember!”

“You’ve made it clear enough that you don’t want to date me,” Derek informs him and what? Is that, like, a mind control technique?

“Yes, I do!” Should he be arguing this point at this exact moment in time? Why hasn’t he ever been this open and honest in the past? Probably because sober-non-sick Stiles is a big fat chicken that’s let a complicated history, slight age discrepancy and crippling social anxiety keep him from expressing his feelings in the form of cold, hard facts for years. Years.

“Stiles,” Derek grunts, looking all rugged and stuff, twisting in his seat to peer out the back window as he reverses, “Just stop.” Something about this feels a little gruffer than usual. Stiles makes a face, or he tries to. Damn these bucket seats are comfy. The Camaro doesn’t really make sense to him anymore if it ever did. It fits Derek personality even less now then it did back in the day. It’s been so long since he’s been in this car and it smells like leather oil and Derek. It smells like it did – oh.

Oh.

Stiles is stoned.

He’s suddenly, deservedly overcome with embarrassment. Jesus, you’d think being sick deranged him. He definitely feels way off kilter and fizzy like a shook-up soda can.

Derek gets him home without trading any more words. Who told him where the spare key is hidden? He brings Stiles upstairs and Stiles clings to him, forehead pressed to the man’s neck. He doesn’t want to be put down. His mattress whines when Derek dips him down onto it.

“I should have texted you back after-,” Stiles starts but Derek doesn’t want to hear it. He’s shaking his head, terse, mouth a dark, tight line. Of course, he doesn’t want to talk now. Stiles had his chance to talk a month ago. Thanks a fucking lot drugs. He can’t feel his face, can’t remember most of the third grade, but he remembers with abrupt and horrible clarity why he hasn’t seen Derek in so long, why he hasn’t been in the Camaro and it’s not because he’s splotchy with fever. Stiles is sort of a champ at repressing the shit out of bad thoughts. He’s even better at taking nothing seriously to the detriment of everyone around him.

“I miss you,” Stiles mutters, body limp and too hot.

“Don’t,” Derek grinds out and then he’s gone and that’s that. Stiles feels even shittier, as he should, because Derek’s cagey and impossible, but he still brought Stiles home no matter how uncomfortable the whole thing must have been for him. And he’s right. Stiles doesn’t get to miss him, especially not just because he’s high and sick and too immature to talk about his feelings or think seriously about what he’s done.

So anyway. St. Patrick’s Day is the worst holiday ever. It’s not the day he broke Derek Hale’s heart, it’s the day he forgot that he had.

***

He poured more effort into the stupid Badges and Batter event than he had ever bothered to inject into his own stupid, selfish life. A thimble of that effort expended on Derek, where it should have been invested, would have changed everything before it could go to shit.

They’d had sex.

Oh yeah.

Problematic in that it shouldn’t have been at all. It had been intense and sudden; no thinking, no talking; Jesus, no condom. It hadn’t been Stiles’s first time and it certainly hadn’t been Derek’s, but moving together, breath sticky and beaded in sweat, so close in the cramped backseat of the Camaro, God, Stiles’s wishes it had been. It had scared the shit out of him and he’s not proud of it. It hadn’t been rushed, no panic fueled need for intimacy; he didn’t know how long they’d been together, how long Derek worked to gently open him up, eyes burning and air stuttering.

He’d been so careful like he’d rehearsed it a million times in his head. And Stiles isn’t blind. He’s not stupid. He knew Derek was into him, maybe he refused to really believe it because of his own gaping hang-ups, but he knew.

It had gotten weird almost immediately after it was over. Got weirder and weirder as days rolled by and still neither of them spoke. Stiles had tried to wrap his fucking mind around what had happened and why and he just, he came up fucking blank. He didn’t know what to do and rather than just admit that he was confused, that he needed help broaching it, he clammed up. It says something a little worrying that Derek Hale was the one to break the four-day silence.

Are you ok?

Stiles still has the text message. It’s still unanswered. He must have stared at it for days after that; every day for the last month. But he never had a response. And now it’s all fucked up.

He did that.

He ruined his only shot at Derek Hale.

Kind of shines a screwed-up light on the whole cold-medicine induced flirting, doesn’t it?

***

Scott throws another river stone across the water. This was his grand plan to celebrate Stiles cold breaking; let’s go get drunk and throw stuff at other stuff. Stiles is down with the getting drunk part. He takes another pull off the whiskey bottle and another drag off his cigarette. Scott didn’t say anything when he bought the pack.

Stiles announces after a while, “I’ve got a hell of a view for the end of the world!” He shouts it at the towering pines and downstream Scott whoops. Ah, melodrama, the spice of life. He stands up, wobbles a little and yells, “I’m a fucking child!” and “Smite me Almighty Smiter!”

Scott doesn’t say anything about this either.

***

Stiles has got to make moves. This will not stand, it’s pathetic and selfish and he’s better than this, he knows he is. He crashes down the stairs, backpack slung over his shoulders and in his haste, he misses the last step but managed not to face-plant. His dad watches from the kitchen looking tired and then returns to his paper and low-acid coffee and scrambled egg whites, perhaps praying to some smiling god that today will be a peaceful one in which he does not have to drive his son to the ER for busting his head on the banister. Again.

“Going out Big Daddy!” Stiles hollers. He gets to the door, pauses, frantically pats down his shorts. “Have you seen my keys?” John has no answer, not that Stiles would wait for one and he immediately drops everything and starts throwing over the living room.

“You heading over to Scott’s?” the sheriff calls, forking clinking a little too hard on his plate. Maybe he thinks if he’s angry enough at it, his breakfast will magically transform into home fries, bacon and a stack of flapjacks smothered in butter and syrup. Fuck. Stiles could totally eat.

He finds his keys shoved between couch cushions among various unused carry-out forks, duck sauce packets and far more crumbs than either of the Stilinski men should have allowed to exist where they spend the bulk of their time. Flushed, thrumming energy and slightly out of breath Stiles appears in the kitchen archway and declares, “I’m in love with Derek Hale.”

John rolls his eyes, “And?”

“Stop acting all wizened like you knew the whole time.”

“You want me to lie to you, son?”

“Yes, I do.”

John sets his coffee aside patiently and swivels his full attention to Stiles, arms hooked over his chest, “You’re in what with who?”

“You know what,” Stiles says, flapping a hand and heading back toward the door, “it’s fine, we’ll work on it, no big.”

***

It takes a while for Derek to realize what going on; little longer than it should, but he’s been preoccupied. Between the online classes that Isaac, of all people, encouraged him to take, the odd photography gig, supervising the rebuild on his family’s land, he’s – intentionally – filled up anytime that might otherwise be spent thinking himself into a catatonic state.

He doesn’t know when it started. Maybe a couple weeks ago? He’s always getting shit in the mail. Erica, in a very un-Erica-like fashion, has taken it upon herself to single-handedly mother him and she somehow roped Boyd into helping her. While they’re both away working on their masters she’s constantly sending him care packages: homemade jams, candles, cookie mixes in Mason Ball jars, shaving kits, snacks, and underwear. That last crossed a line and when he called her to tell her to cut it out the end result was an even bigger box filled to the brim with Calvin Klein undies and sprinkled with condoms.

Much more Erica-like.

So, when potted plants started showing up on his doorstep, he didn’t think much of it. Derek likes plants. His pack knows it. Not strange.

And then, things start being free. That is a pinch alarming. He knows what he looks like, knows that that matters to some people and, admittedly, he’s gotten a coffee on the house here and there, been given coupon codes at the register by a smitten cashier or two. But this isn’t that.

His coffee place, the one on Fort and Callister, that is his only in that they make the best café breve in town and he now refuses to go anywhere else, stopped taking his money. They still serve him, but the cashier informed him that his tab had already been picked up. And so it was, every day for a week.

It happened again at Mr. Tire when he went to settle up for his oil change. When he asked who this misguided, mystery philanthropist was the guy behind desk’s lips thinned and he said, “Some twat,” and it was clear he had been instructed to answer this way.

That was when he realized something was up. What kind of stalker makes a person’s life easier without bothering to actually stalk the person? If anyone had come within a mile of his house that shouldn’t have been there, he’d have known about it. Among others, that was one of the reasons he traded up his loft downtown for a cottage near Platt Lake.

And then, he got a letter. No return address, but he knew the handwriting.

I’m sorry.

That’s it. Nothing else. Derek threw it in the trash and went back to his thesis.

***

When he got home and the light was failing through the pines, the sky a bright bruise overhead, he paused, frozen to the spot. The cobble and siding of his house had been power washed. The lawn was cut and edged. The trees and flowerbeds are mulched. He stands on the gravel drive, grinding his teeth, glaring at the improvements, the intrusion.

There’ss another letter, this time, taped to the door.

I know this doesn’t make up for anything.

Fucking right it doesn’t. This note joins the first in his garbage can.

***

Peter examines the new solar lights lining Derek’s brick walkway as they blink on one at a time. He takes a sip of his bourbon and says, “So that’s still going on?”

Derek doesn’t want to answer, doesn’t want to talk about it, because talking about it validates it in some weird way. He stares harder at the tiny text of his book. Peter insists on have dinner once a month and for some reason, Derek allows it. He grudgingly accepts that he gives in because he’s lonely while his pack is at school out of state and he’s never really been a friends person.

“I don’t know what you expected to happen, Derek,” Peter sighs. Yes, in a moment of weakness, Derek mentioned – the thing that happened. With Stiles. Not in any great detail, but it was too painful to keep to himself. He never thought anything could lance through him like that, be too much for him to shove down. He’d told his therapist about it as well and she’d beamed at him for his improved communication skills. Fat lot of good they’ve been doing him in his actual life.

“Nothing,” Derek answers. It’s true. He hadn’t expected anything. Stiles doesn’t owe him anything.

“You’re being just as childish,” Peter waxes on, “he won’t keep at this forever.”

“I don’t want him to.” It’s a lie. His uncle hears the unexpected trip in his heartbeat and so does he.

*** 

He gets a fern next, big and bushy and healthy. It’s been dug up from the Preserve, still has that loamy, sweet scent of the forest. The letter balance on its fronds says:

I got scared and I hurt you and I’m sorry.

Derek takes the fern inside and puts it on the kitchen island. He stares at it a while longer. He pulls out his phone, scrolls to Stiles’s text thread. He couldn’t bring himself to delete it or add to it and he’s still got a hurting, bitter feeling in his gut when he looks at it.

The night it happened, they’d gone on a late-night run for donuts. Stiles always had ideas like that, something to shake up a room before the air got stale. It had been unseasonably warm and they’d driven with the windows down. Stiles hadn’t even made it out of the car, hadn’t even finished asking what Derek wanted before they were kissing. He didn’t remember who moved first anymore. He did remember that once it started neither of them could stop.

Whatever strained, strange, careful shit had been between them, it was just gone. Maybe they’d made it far enough from the beginning that none of it mattered anymore. Derek broke away to move the car somewhere more secluded. Stiles hadn’t said a word while he did, but he didn’t look away, watched Derek like a wolf would. Derek had been shaking, terrified it would end, that he’d make a wrong move, hurt Stiles and then he was inside of him and everything turned unhurried, burned slow and low.

They should have talked, he should have stopped it going so far. He’d known what his feelings were, he could have brought them out into the open at any time. But he’d been too afraid he’d fuck up the good they had between them. It’s a flimsy excuse and he knows it.

Derek sets the letter down beside the fern, fingers still splayed over it. His den is starting to look like a botanical garden and as much as he wants to be, he just can’t bring himself to resent all of the beautiful growing things that remind him of his old home.

***

Stiles is fucking beat. It’s not easy, chasing the man you spurned all over town to make amends. He imagines his bank account feels the same. Mulch isn’t cheap, nor is fancy coffee on a student/server’s wages. He still can’t bring himself to check the balance, instead, he makes a self-promise to let his credit card cool it for a few weeks. However long it takes to make this right, for the foreseeable future, his gifts will have to be of the homemade variety. Everyone loves a good cornhusk doll. Hopefully.

He belly-flops onto his bed, face mashed into his pillow. He should take a shower, wash off the woods and sweat. But the thought of hot water reactivating what feels like a thousand mosquito bites all over his body solidifies his resolve not to fucking move. He’s thumbing through Reddit when his dad pushes open his door.

“How goes the hunt?” John asks, leaning on the frame.

“Stupidly.”

“Hungry?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

Stiles flails out of exasperation, making a grumpy noise as he does.

“Whatever you say kiddo,” John chuckles, “more donuts for me.”

Stiles gives in. He knows that lilt to his dad’s voice. The Sherriff’s got something to tease him with, he’s just too tired to be teased.

“Don’t be a stereotype, dad,” sighs Stiles, angling to face his father without really getting up or moving at all. John’s holding a pink donut box and peering under the lid with a smile glazed across his face.

“Smells like hibiscus frosting,” John informs him, “well, let me kn-,”

“Hibiscus is my favorite,” Stiles says like the fucking food robot that he is, “Where’d you get those?” He’s sitting up now, actually, make use of his vertebra instead of slowly rearranging his molecules into the overall shape of a puddle.

“Hard to say, they were sitting on the porch with a note,” he says casually, pulling a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and his son springs off the fucking bed like a Hun on the mountaintop.

I’m sorry too.

Stiles stares at the words, heart racing faster every time he reads them again.

“That looks like my future son-in-law’s handwriting,” John observes, shoving a donut into his mouth as if this is a totally normal thing to have happened.

Stiles doesn’t even have time for a witty retort, he’s down the hall, pulling on flipflops, shouldering out the door. He comes to a screeching fucking halt halfway down to the drive to his Jeep. He’s in such a frenzy, he almost missed it: the sleek lines of a Camaro parked behind his dad’s cruiser and Derek Hale leaning on the driver’s side door, outlined in gold by the sinking sun.

Stiles gawks at him, mouth suddenly way too dry, “Uh, hey.” He must look insane and smell like a dumpster fire.

And then a smile creeps onto Derek's mouth, stretching it until he’s grinning, all teeth. Stiles wets his lips, takes an assertive step forward, levels a finger at him and declares, “I’m in love with you Derek Hale.”

Derek comes off the car, cups Stiles jaw in both hands. He purrs, “I know.”

Stiles chuckles a breathy, disbelieving, “Fuck off, did you just Solo me?”

Derek looks like he’s going to answer and at the last second his nose crinkles into a snarl and he’s hoisting Stiles up against him, arms locked under his thighs. Stiles doesn’t waste another moment on insecurity; he kisses Derek the way he’ll kiss him for the rest of his life.

**Author's Note:**

> I should be working on other things >>
> 
> I can't help myself.
> 
> That thing that Stiles shouts about having a hell of a view for the end of the world is a lyric from Until the Night Turns by Lord Huron. If you haven't listened to Strange Trails (the song's album) I highly recommend you do. It melts my loins to butter. 
> 
> Enjoy this quick fluffy garbage and, hey, thanks for the support my lad. I appreciate you.


End file.
